Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/90

ALLEN.ALLEN. a powerful political influence. He was appointed to the office of public printer by President Harrison, was active in the campaign of 1840, and was one of those who stood at President Harrison's bedside at his death. In 1842 he retired from politics and removed to St. Louis, Mo., where he married, and began the construction of a railroad, the first of the system that resulted in the Pacific railroad, the great highway of commerce between the East and the West. In 1858 he founded the banking house of Allen, Copp & Nesbitt in St. Louis. He built the Iron Mountain railroad, which opened up a rich mineral region. This road he sold in 1881 to Jay Gould, receiving for it a check for two million dollars. He left many monuments to his public enterprise, among them the Berkshire Athenæum, at Pittsfield, Mass., which he erected at a cost of fifty thousand dollars, and the fireproof Southern hotel at St. Louis, opened May, 1881. In November, 1880, he was elected a representative to the 47th Congress. He died in Washington, D. C., April 8, 1882. ALLEN, Timothy Field, physician, was born at Westminster, Vt., April 24, 1837. He graduated from Amherst college in 1858, and from the medical school of the University of the city of New York in 1861, when he commenced the practice of medicine in Brooklyn, N. Y., and during 1862 was acting assistant surgeon in the United States army. In 1864 he established himself in New York city. As physician and scientist Dr. Allen has a national reputation, and as an author his published works have been favorably received in both America and Europe. His "Encyclopædia of Materia Medica," published in New York 1874-'79, and the index to the same issued in 1881, is a work covering the whole field of homœopathic therapeutics to the date of its issue. In 1878 he published a work on ophthalmic therapeutics, and his practice and writings have contributed in a large degree to the establishment of homœopathy. In 1867 he became professor of materia medica in the New York homœopathic medical college, and from 1882 to 1893 was the dean of that institution. He was also professor of materia medica in the New York medical college and hospital for women. He was president of and consulting surgeon to the New York ophthalmic hospital for many years; also an active member of the American institute of homœopathy, and of the state and county homœopathic medical societies, in all of which he held the office of president. As a botanist, Dr. Allen made a specialty of the characeæ; his works thereon being authoritative. He was chosen a fellow of the New York academy of sciences and of the national association for the advancement of science; honorary member of the homœopathic medical society of France; corresponding member of the British homœopathic medical society; honorary member of the Albany county medical society; the Rhode Island state homœopathic medical society, and consulting physician to the Laura Franklin hospital of New York city. He twice received the honorary degree of M.D., and that of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Amherst college in 1885. ALLEN, William, jurist, was born in Philadelphia about 1710. He married a daughter of Andrew Hamilton, and came into public notice first in 1741, when he succeeded his father-in-law as recorder of Philadelphia. In 1750 he was made chief justice of Pennsylvania, which office he held four years. He gave his influence to assist Benjamin Franklin in founding the college of Philadelphia, and was a friend and patron of Benjamin West, the artist. He sympathized with the mother country, disapproved of war, and in 1774 left America for England, where he published "The American Crisis," in which he proposed a plan for reconciling the differences between England and her colonies. He died in England in September, 1780. ALLEN, William, educator, was born in Pittsfield, Mass., Jan. 2, 1784, son of Thomas Allen, a clergyman. He was a direct descendant of Governor Bradford on his father's side. He was graduated at Harvard college in 1802, studied theology, and in 1804 was licensed to preach and was first stationed in western New York. While holding the position of assistant librarian at Harvard college, he began the '"American Biographical and Historical Dictionary" (1809), which was the first work of the kind published in the United States, and which he revised and enlarged from the original seven hundred American names to eighteen hundred names in 1832, and seven thousand names in 1857. He was called from his work as a librarian in 1810 to preach as successor to his father in Pittsfield, where he remained seven years. In 1817 he was appointed president of Dartmouth college, and in 1819 of Bowdoin college. He served Bowdoin for nineteen years, retiring at the age of fifty-five, in order to devote himself to literary pursuits. He contributed to a new edition of Webster's dictionary ten thousand words not before given. He wrote: "Junius Unmasked" (1828); "Memoirs of Dr. Eleazar Wheelock and of Dr. John Codman" (1853); "A Discourse at the close of the Second Century of the Settlement at Northampton, Mass." (1854); "Wunnissoo, or the Vale of Housatonnuck," a poem (1856); " Christian Sonnets " (1860); "Poems of Nazareth and the Cross" (1866); "Sacred Songs" (1867). His "Life with selections from his Correspondence," was published in Philadelphia in 1847. He died at Northampton, Mass., July 16, 1868.